The Ersatz Organist

     I never wanted to play the organ. From the dawn of my musical life, I knew my keyboard instrument of choice was the piano. I loved the seemingly endless spectrum of tone and color one can draw from a fine piano, simply by virtue of one's physical and psychological makeup—combined with the speed, the amount of pressure, and how much of one's fingertips one uses to depress the keys. When I listened to great pianists, I was awed and fascinated at their ability to turn the piano into an aural kaleidoscope, to evoke the sound of rain, thunder, birds, the human voice, and everything in between. When as a child I looked at an organ, with all its stops and pistons, bells and whistles, I thought, "Well, you just push different buttons to get different sounds. That doesn't seem very fun or challenging." Aside from hymns, I didn't even like to listen to the organ. Organ recitals left me completely unmoved and unimpressed.

     Even now, I remain unmoved. I can sometimes be impressed by a fine organist's skill, but I am never moved, nor would I willingly choose to attend an organ recital. The piano, on the other hand—rather, in the hands of a master—can, and very often does, move me to tears. It can also make me laugh—when I am so overwhelmed by the music and the pianist's gift, so much joy wells up in my soul, I can't help laughing. Glee. Sheer glee.

     When I entered the monastery, I knew I would have to curtail severely my piano playing, noise of any kind, musical or otherwise, not being conducive to the silence that is so crucial to monastic life. I also knew that I would eventually be asked to learn to play the organ. It surprises me that so many people think pianists can automatically play the organ and vice-versa. The only thing the two instruments have in common is the keyboard; otherwise, they are radically different and require different techniques. By the same token, an oboe and a clarinet are both wind instruments, but they are radically different and require different techniques—not to mention the fact that one has a double reed and the other has a single. The only thing they have in common, really, is that they are both blown into.

     Sisters in that monastery who learned the organ before I entered, took lessons from a local teacher. But when it came time for me to learn, that teacher's health had declined and she no longer taught. Since there was no other organ teacher in Lufkin, I perforce taught myself. At that time, a sister from an active congregation was visiting us for a week, to help hone our liturgy and improve our singing. She kindly got me started on the organ, giving me the Gleason manual as a guide. I remembered my high school choir director, who was also a church organist, had always told me that hymns are some of the most difficult things to play on the organ; so almost immediately on learning basic pedal technique and finger legato, I sightread and worked on as many hymns as I could.

     For some time, I found it especially difficult to stop my left pinkie finger from wanting to play bass notes! And of course, there was the problem most common among pianists learning the organ: training the left hand to be completely independent from the feet. At first, the left hand wants not only to play bass notes, it wants to move parallel with the bass line  instead of sticking to wherever the tenor line goes. The remedy is to practice, ad nauseum, the feet and left hand by themselves.

     I won't go into the challenges of finger legato or the finer points of pedal technique; it all gets too complicated. I will say, though, that I had to practice using at all times the quietest registration possible. The monastery owns two organs, almost identical to each other; one is in the chapel, the other in the chapter hall. The latter is used for practice. However, the chapter hall is in the same building as the professed sisters' cells. Given that when they're not working or in chapel, nuns are encouraged to spend as much time as they can praying and reading in their cells, those practicing on the organ can never practice with "real" registrations, for fear of disturbing their sisters. So the organists never really know what a piece sounds like until they play it on the chapel organ, in the actual situation for which they practiced! When I was asked to play the Bach-Gounod Ave Maria (and later, the Schubert) for a special Mass, I had no idea what my chosen registration actually sounded like beforehand. Scary—and very frustrating.

     Now I am the volunteer organist (and, at the moment, the volunteer cantor) at a small chapel in a retirement village. The congregation consists of retired sisters belonging to a certain active order, and lay residents. I'm happy to put the skills learned during my novitiate to such a worthy use, and grateful to be given the opportunity to serve the Church in even a small way. But I consider myself a pianist by nature and an ersatz organist who still doesn't like the sound of an organ, except in the liturgy.

Whassup?

     In answer to this post's title question, nothing much. As I look at this blank page, typing words merely to fill it, and rummaging around my echo chamber of a brain for any tiny scrap of inspiration, I realize that my life these days is a swiftly-passing series of ordinary details rather than a colorful parade of main events. Today, for instance: it started routinely, with praying the Office of Readings and Lauds, then Mass --

     [detour] I've been pulling double duty at Mass these past several weeks, playing organ and cantoring. Our former long-time cantor/liturgist had to retire per her doctor's orders. Until we find a new cantor, I'm it. Though singing and playing the piano at the same time has never been a problem for me (it was a big part of my job as an opera coach, after all), singing and playing the organ at the same time is a different story. Feet are involved, as well as hands. Some very peculiar, Berg-like bass notes tend to emerge from the pedals while I'm singing. There's also a body mic involved. The mic is attached by a three-foot wire to a little box (don't know the technical name) that has the on/off switch and volume control, etc. and is meant to be clipped to some clothing part or other, but sometimes my outfit affords no such clipping place, in which case I just lay the little control box next to me on the organ bench. Last Sunday, just before I began to play the Communion hymn, I caught my hand in the wire, which caused my body mic (which was on) to fly off my collar and onto the organ pedals, yanking the control box down with it. The racket through the speakers was horrific. Luckily, no one choked on the host in their surprise. I do hope we find another cantor soon.

     -- then after Mass, I hurried home because we were having one of our Sunday family lunches. These are invariably jolly, noisy, and much of Mom's good Filipino food is consumed. Today, after lunch, we had a couple of rousing games of Mexican Train Dominos, which raised the noise level in our tiny house almost to deafening. Whoever said women are the gentler sex has obviously never been around my sisters at their most raucous. 

     Post Dominos, my sister-in-law helped me restore the favorites bar on my computer (I am so hopeless at technical things), which disappeared mysteriously some months ago (the bar, that is; not my computer). I didn't really miss it until I joined Pinterest and discovered I had nowhere to put my "Pin It" button. Which is why my Pinterest page is currently such a washout. But now that I have my favorites bar back and my "Pin It" button on it, rest assured I will be pinning like a madwoman with a voodoo doll!

     Quiet was restored after the family left; my mother settled herself at the dining room table with the Sunday jumbo crossword, and I retired to my room for a soothing episode or two of Frasier before confronting the blank writing box on Blogger.

     Since I have indeed managed to put something up on this blog today (whether or not today's rambles are of any deep interest to anyone is of little consequence to me; I'm just happy I wrote something), I may put this day to rest with a clear conscience. After praying Vespers, I look forward to watching the finale of Food Network Star, which my mother and I have been avidly following.

     All in all, it's been a good day. Good days don't have to be comprised of major events. Ordinary details can be just as satisfying.

Compensations in the Life of a Spinster

     Somehow, I always knew that I'd never get married. I know, I know—"you never know." But I knew. And I know. I mean, come on, I've already passed the half-century mark. Not that my life has been lacking in romance, serious relationships, messy relationships, downright wrong relationships, joy, heartache, passion—any of that. And Lord knows I've had my fill of yearning from afar, otherwise known as "unrequited love," which fortunately became a very productive poetic inspiration, alla Dante and Petrarch.

     Ever since I can remember, my romantic nature has dominated my life, manifesting itself in crush after crush on boys who were more interested in my friends than in me. Metaphorically speaking, I was always the bridesmaid, never the bride. To my youthful reasoning, my being constantly passed over was due to my looks: olive skin, flat nose, full lips. Your basic Asian-American geek, with thick glasses to boot. Keep in mind, this was back in the '60s and early '70s, before "exotically ethnic" was a turn-on. Back then, we girls all wanted to look like Cheryl Tiegs. Of course, when I got to college, it was a whole different ballgame and I was actually grateful for my looks, but as a pre-teen and adolescent, I was too insecure and shackled by social anxiety disorder to rely on my personality; in my eyes, I had none. All I had was musical talent, which tended to intimidate boys rather than attract them to me.

     That same musical talent proved to be a boon in other ways, a compensation for many heartaches and ego bruises. It gave me my life and my living, to quote John Denver, and quite an exciting, rewarding life and living they were, too. Music boosted my self-confidence and eventually tamed (though not quite cured) my social anxiety disorder. The piano became my confidante and faithful companion, though, as in all intense relationships, we had our bitter battles and dark days of not speaking to each other. I admit, I was even abusive at times, beating my fists on its keys and screaming expletives, knowing damn well it couldn't fight or scream back. But the piano never deserted me. Ultimately, I had to desert it, having come to the realization that we could never live together in harmony.

     I exchanged that great, all-consuming relationship for a much easier, less demanding one—the organ. I don't call myself a real organist, mind you, though I did teach myself, with the aid of a good book, proper organ technique (very different from the piano), including pedals; and like a real organist, I wear bona fide organ shoes when I play. However, I have absolutely no interest in playing solo organ music; all I want is to play hymns and play them very well. My organ playing is purposely limited to Mass, and in the chapel where I play, it is not necessary to have a solo prelude and postlude; just the hymns and the sung parts of the Ordinary. In this way, I am able to avoid a lot of practicing, which through my thirty-seven years as a pianist has proved to be a major threat to my sanity and blood pressure.

     All in all, music has been a wonderfully satisfying compensation for a rocky and sometimes non-existent love life; even when the piano and I were on the outs, we always loved each other deep down.

     I mentioned earlier that an unrequited love may spawn poetic inspiration. In my case, it spawned The Distant Belovèd, an ongoing, ever-expanding collection of sonnets and lyrics. At this writing, it consists of over fifty pieces (and many rejects). I write other kinds of poetry as well, not just love poems, but I had to find a creative way to—now, the Italians have a particularly charming word for it—sfogarmi, vent myself. When I first began The Distant Belovèd, I had no intention of ever having it published, either in part or as a whole. It was purely personal, an extension of my journal. But my sister, after reading a few of the poems, convinced me to submit them, and I am happy that some have found a home in small poetry journals, along with several of my non-love poems. Who knows if I'll ever try to get the whole of The Distant Belovèd published? Editors today don't seem to go for love poems, especially of the formal variety (formal poetry is poetry that has meter and/or rhyme, as opposed to free verse, which has neither), and some of mine do, I suppose, border on what they would call "sentimental." But hey, it's hard not to be sentimental about love. And what exactly is "sentimental," anyway? If it brings a smile to the lips or a tear to the eye, is it such a literary crime? Does that make me a hack? The Nicholas Sparks of poets?

     So poetry has been another great compensation, though not exactly lucrative. . . .

     But the biggest compensation of all for being a spinster is being able to spend these past few years helping my parents. I will always be grateful to have been here for my father when he needed me and my mother most; now that he's gone, I can still be here for my beloved mother. Maybe deep down I always knew, as Beth March did in Little Women, that I was never destined to fly far from home, and that my true ministry lies right here with those I love most. I regret nothing, and have everything to be thankful for.

     And I care not one whit that I ended that sentence with a preposition.

OFFERING

You gave me a heart too large
for the tiny life I've led.
Hard-pressed have I been to know
what to do with the surplus,
the virgin flesh burgeoning
in the hollow of my breast.
What will You have me do, then?

Would You take it partly spent—
or give it, like the talent
that was buried in the field,
to one less fearful than I?
Or would You have me fill it
with as much unspoken love
as any one heart can hold?

How many times have I stood
in the marketplace, this heart
too large in my trembling hands,
this blushing eager maiden
of a heart; but no one came.

My heart will not go empty.
I will sow it with the years'
silent loves and silent wounds
and reap a harvest of prayer,
place it at Your gate, in hope
that its yield may be enough.


["Offering" was first published in Dreamcatcher]